Time is short so I have to be brief. I just got back from an event sponsored by the Economist at which two excellent speakers discussed Taiwan’s macroeconomic situation, and then related it to more personal issues, such as how the Taiwanese see their futures, how they save their money and how they look at China. What came out of this discussion and the following Q & A was familiar to anyone who’s attended all the American Chamber of Commerce luncheons that I have: Taiwan is in the grip of a spiritual depression, mainly due to its inferiority complex which in turn is due to the long dark shadow Mainland China casts on all of its neighbors.

Again, this is old news. Plenty of people in Hong Kong and Singapore will tell you the same thing. What I got out of today’s session was the realization that much of this malaise might be part of a self-fulfilling prophesy, namely the stubborn belief that Taiwan is doomed to slow down and become irrelevant as China grows. Now, there’s plenty of evidence to show that this is partly true, but also plenty of counter-evidence to show the situation is not nearly so dire as those on the street believe. Taiwan’s forex reserves are the third or fourth highest in Asia (depending what week you look); it’s one of the world’s leaders in foreign investment; the wealth here is nothing to sneer at; and despite all the doom and gloom, Taiwan’s GDP has been growing at a respectable 4.1 percent a year. Not orgasm-inducing numbers, but nothing to weep over, either.

And yet, talk to anyone here and there is a tone of resignation and reticence. Taiwan’s glory days are over. The only place to be is China. Taiwan’s markets can only contract, including its job market. And yet, even in the face of downsizing and all kinds of pressures brought on by increased globalization, most of the multinationals here are doing quite well. No, not as spectacularly as some are doing in the PRC, but not so poorly as to merit swallowing the hemlock. This is still an exceptionally vibrant economy, unvexed by inflation or rampant corruption. (No, I’m not saying there’s no corruption in the government, only that the corruption that there is doesn’t drasticaly affect people’s lives and pocketbooks as in places like China and Indonesia and the Philippines.)

One of the speakers said a lot of the misery is caused by today’s political mess, and that nearly everyone agrees that 2008 will be “the magical year” when optimism once again surges in Taiwan. And he might be right; the animosity toward Chen in particular and politicians in general right now is so ripe you can smell it. If that’s what will make the diference, then I hope 2008 comes as fast as possible (especially since that’s the year Bush, too, gets the heave-ho).

It’s just too bad that so manyTaiwanese today see only bleakness in the cards, and that, at least according to one speaker, they then use this bleakness to feed a self-fulfilling prophesy of failure. They presume they cannot soar, so they don’t aim high. They presume they can’t have more so they settle for less. They presume the future is a closed book so they cancel their dreams. It’s a sad phenomenon, since the numbers simply do not support such melancholy. Let’s hope the malaise is as temporary as possible, because it’s nothing less than a cancer that creates a chain-reaction of doubt, insecurity and impotency. The malaise is real, even if its cause is not. If the solution is a new leader who can inspire the people and lift them up, I welcome him or her with open arms, no matter which party they belong to.

For the last two paragraphs alone…

Fill ‘Er Up With Dictators
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: September 27, 2006

What’s a matter? No sense of humor? You didn’t enjoy watching Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez addressing the U.N. General Assembly and saying of President Bush: ‘The devil came here yesterday, right here. It smells of sulfur still today.’ Many U.N. delegates roared with laughter.

Oh well then, you must have enjoyed watching Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad breezing through New York City, lecturing everyone from the U.N. to the Council on Foreign Relations on the evils of American power and how the Holocaust was just a myth.

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So what else is new? This time, it’s a report from the publication Nature on how global warming may be providing new fuel for hurricanes.

The Bush administration has blocked release of a report that suggests global warming is contributing to the frequency and strength of hurricanes, the journal Nature reported Tuesday. The possibility that warming conditions may cause storms to become stronger has generated debate among climate and weather experts, particularly in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

In the new case, Nature said weather experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration part of the
Commerce Department in February set up a seven-member panel to prepare a consensus report on the views of agency scientists about global warming and hurricanes.

According to Nature, a draft of the statement said that warming may be having an effect. In May, when the report was expected to be released, panel chair Ants Leetmaa received an e-mail from a Commerce official saying the report needed to be made less technical and was not to be released, Nature reported. Leetmaa, head of NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in New Jersey, did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment.

Well, we wouldn’t want to issue reports that are too technical, would we? Most. Dishonest. Administration. Ever.

An absolute must-read.

Whether you love Bill Clinton or hate him, one thing cannot be denied: the man knows how to communicate. A lot of righties are portraying his now-famous interview on Fox news as proof that he has no self-control, that he became “unhinged” and “hysterical.” One blogger I read made a big deal about how fat he looked. The bottom line, however, was that this interview was Clinton’s finest hour and finally Fox got hoisted on its own petard. Again, the right saw Clinton’s passion as a sign of insanity. But trust me on this one: if Bush ever, even once, could come across as that articulate, passionate and intellectually uncompromising as Clinton did the right would be standing up cheering him on with tears in their eyes.

This is the single best post I’ve seen to date on the interview. Read it first, then tell me how wrong I am about Clinton.

Update: Everyone has to make up his or her own mind. The video is being scrubbed from the Internet but it can still be seen here.

Also, this clip from the Nation blog referenced above says it all:

When a beaten Wallace tried to cover for himself – “…all I can say is, I’m asking you in good faith because it’s on people’s minds, sir. And I wasn’t…” – Clinton nailed him: “There’s a reason it’s on people’s minds. That’s the point I’m trying to make. There’s a reason it’s on people’s minds because they’ve done a serious disinformation campaign to create that impression.”

Love Bill Clinton or hate him, but understand that his appearance on Fox New Sunday was one of those rare moments in recent American history when a target of our drive-by media shot back.

Yes. As I said, if one of their (the right’s) own had pulled this off, instead of foaming at the mouth they’d be lauding him as a hero. But this is Clinton. All Clinton has to do is show up and they foam at the mouth.

A very small, rushed post about some very big changes that are about to take place in my life. On Saturday I’m off to the island of Kinmen for a two-day project and I fly directly to Vietnam for a two-week trip with my family (Vietnam, Cambodia and a bit of Thailand). So needless to say, there’s going to be another dramatic slowdown over here (guest bloggers interested in putting up posts in my absence can send me an email).

But the real changes take place when I get back on October 16. Bottom line is I will start working part-time so I can study Chinese five days a week. This is something I’ve dreamed of doing for a long time, and I am incredibly grateful to my company for allowing me to do it. How long this situation will last I can’t say, but my guess is I’ll be sticking around Taiwan until winter ends. And then…and then… Well, we’ll just have to wait and see. But I definitely have some ideas. And so does my company. More as the situation unfolds.

Good for him. The blogger poihts out this hasn’t been confirmed (thus the question mark in the headline), but it sounds like a good idea.

Bush always has a soft landing, and revelations that would have resulted in Clinton’s or even Papa Bush’s crucifixion bounce off the boy-man like rubber bands. I’m sure you’ve all heard the story by now of the report by 16 government intelligence services that basically indicts the Bush administration for creating a new and more zealous generation of terrorists thanks to the fuck-up in Iraq. I predict, however, that this story will go nowhere, devastating though it might have proven for any other US president. But no other president had the force of the Wurlitzer behind him. Greenwald explains:

Only in the U.S., with its toxic mix of Bush administration propaganda and media listlessness, could it ever even be a question open to debate whether invading, bombing and occupying a Muslim country in the Middle East for almost four years would fuel Muslim radicalism, inflame anti-American resentment, and create far more terrorists than ever existed before. And only in the current political climate where up is down could the political party directly responsible for severely exacerbating the terrorism problem with a pointless, disastrous and seemingly endless war have their chances for victory depend upon maximizing the country’s focus on terrorism — the very problem they have so severely exacerbated.

So, a recap of the Iraq war: there were never any WMDs. The proliferation of government death squads and militias in Iraq means that, compared to the Saddam era, human rights have worsened and torture has increased to record levels. Iranian influence has massively increased, as a result of a Shiite fundamentalist government loyal to Tehran replacing the former anti-Iranian regime. We’ve squandered hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives. And we have — according to the consensus of our own intelligence community — directly worsened the terrorist problem with our invasion, and continue to worsen it with our ongoing occupation.

How can anyone claim with a straight face that this war was a good idea?

Leave it to Karen Hughes and Karl Rove. They’ll take care of it with some talking points and position papers. They’ll find out that somone in one of the 16 agencies once gave money to a liberal or, even worse, had a Moslem uncle. They are in over-drive already, pumping away to undermine the whole thing, claiming, as always, that the whole thing is a trick brought to you by the wicked MSM. They do it every time and they always win. Will we let them win again in November? Stay tuned.

We’ve heard it before, the pluses and minuses, the maze of contradictions that is present-day China. Schell itemizes these in two convenient lists to show how China is, on the one hand, incredibly robust, and on the other hand frighteningly brittle. He then concludes:

How can such contradictions be reconciled? The best everyone can hope for is steady piecemeal change. For the Chinese the contradictions don’t really bite so long as they have continued economic growth to focus on and to absorb some of the problems. But what happens when there’s a break in that growth? It could come from inside China or from outside (such as a disruption in the US economy).

It’s hard to look at the China boom now without thinking about the Japan boom in the 1970s and ’80s, remembering how everyone knew the Japanese were going dominate the US and world economy, and we all had to study Japanese methods to learn how to compete. Then that went away, and it hasn’t come back.

The leadership of China is highly aware of the environmental problems and is enlightened and ambitious about green solutions, but that attitude does not yet extend beyond the leadership, and until it does, not much can happen.

That’s China: huge, consequential for everybody, and profoundly unresolved.

When the day of reckoning finally comes, that inevitable “break in the growth” – inflation, deflation, recession, whatver – we’ll have a far clearer picture of just how sustainable and meaningful China’s undeniable rise really is. Until then, I expect to hear more of the same, including parents rushing to teach their children Mandarin and a never-ending stream of articles salivating over the New China. Those articles may well be justified, but for now we just don’t know.

Via CDT.

Stuff Happens Again in Baghdad
By FRANK RICH
Published: September 24, 2006

IT’S not just about torture. Even if there had never been an Abu Ghraib, a Guantanamo or an American president determined to rewrite the Geneva Conventions, America would still be losing the war for hearts and minds in the Arab world. Our first major defeat in that war happened at the dawn of the Iraq occupation, before ‘detainee abuse’ entered our language: the ‘Stuff happens!’ moment at the National Museum in Baghdad.

Three and a half years later, have we learned anything? You have to wonder. As the looting of the museum was the first clear warning of disasters soon to come, so the stuff that’s happening at the museum today is a grim indicator of where we’re headed in Iraq: America is empowering the very Islamic radicals this war was supposed to smite. But even now we seem to be averting our eyes from reality on the ground in Baghdad.

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